ABSTRACT. Alison LeaAnne Haley Ottenbreit, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor Charles Stangor, Psychology

Transcription

1 ABSTRACT Title of Document: WHAT MATTERS MOST?: THE EFFECTS OF GOAL COMMITMENT ON CLAIMING DISCRIMINATION Alison LeaAnne Haley Ottenbreit, Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Directed By: Professor Charles Stangor, Psychology Three studies explored the possibility that goal activation and goal commitment influenced attributions to discrimination. I hypothesized that some goals would lead to greater claiming of discrimination, while others would lead to less claiming of discrimination, and that this effect would be enhanced as commitment to the goal increased. I found some preliminary evidence supporting this hypothesis. In Study 1, when participants were more committed to being well liked, they reported discrimination less than when less committed to the goal. In Study 2, when participants were more committed to maintaining self-esteem, they claimed discrimination more than when less committed to the goal. Study 3 provided less conclusive evidence to support my hypothesis. Finally, I found that in conditions where participants claimed discrimination more or were expected to claim discrimination more, they also reported greater selfesteem, less anxiety, and less depression.

2 WHAT MATTERS MOST?: THE EFFECTS OF GOAL COMMITMENT ON CLAIMING DISCRIMINATION By Alison LeaAnne Haley Ottenbreit Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2007 Committee: Professor Charles Stangor, Chair Dr. Seppo Iso-Ahola Dr. Arie Kruglanski Dr. Harold Sigall Dr. Ty Tashiro

3 Copyright by Alison LeaAnne Haley Ottenbreit 2007

4 ii Table of Contents Table of Contents ii List of Tables.iii Introduction 1 Study Method..19 Results...23 Discussion.26 Study Method..29 Results...34 Discussion.38 Study Method..41 Results...45 Discussion.50 General Discussion...53 Tables 62 Appendices 72 References.88

5 iii List of Tables Table 1: Study 1 means for attributions to discrimination by goal activation and goal commitment conditions. Table 2: Study 1 means for each measure of self-esteem by goal activation and goal commitment conditions. Table 3: Study 1 means for anxiety and depression by goal activation and goal commitment. Table 4: Correlations among the dependent measures of Study 1. Table 5: Study 2 means for attributions to discrimination by goal activation and goal commitment conditions. Table 6: Study 2 means for each measure of self-esteem by goal activation and goal commitment conditions. Table 7: Study 2 means for anxiety and depression by goal activation and goal commitment. Table 8: Correlations among the dependent measures of Study 2. Table 9: Study 3 means for attributions to discrimination by goal activation and goal commitment conditions. Table 10: Study 3 means for each measure of self-esteem by goal activation and goal commitment conditions. Table 11: Study 3 means for anxiety and depression by goal activation and goal commitment. Table 12: Correlations among the dependent measures of Study 3.

6 1 What Matters Most?: The Effects of Goal Commitment on Claiming Discrimination Research on targets of discrimination has increased dramatically in recent years (Major, Quinton, & McCoy, 2002, Stangor, Swim, Sechrist, Decoster, Van Allen, & Ottenbreit, 2003, Steele, 1997, Swim & Stangor, 1998). Social psychologists have researched when individuals make attributions to discrimination (Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999, Major, Gramzow, McCoy, Levin, Schmader, & Sidanius, 2002, Stangor, Swim, & Sechrist, 1999), and how making these attributions to discrimination impact stigmatized individuals (Crocker, Cornwell, & Major, 1993, Jetten, Branscombe, Schmitt, & Spears, 2001). Feeling that one has been discriminated can have serious consequences for members of stigmatized groups (Schultz, Israel, Williams, Parker, Becker, & James, 2000, Williams, Spencer, & Jackson, 1999, Williams & Williams- Morris, 2000). Many studies find that the more unfair treatment and discrimination individuals are exposed to, the lower their overall physical and mental health (Corning, 2002, Kessler, Mickelson, & Williams, 1999, Schmitt & Branscombe, 2002, Swim, Hyers, Cohen, & Ferguson, 2001). Other studies find that making attributions to discrimination produces still other costs, such as being disliked (Kaiser & Miller, 2001) or fear of retaliation (Swim & Hyers, 1999). However, Crocker and Major (1989) proposed that making attributions to discrimination can also be beneficial. They have found evidence in a number of experiments that claiming discrimination protects an individual s self-esteem (Crocker, Cornwell, & Major, 1993, Crocker, Voelkl, Testa, & Major, 1991, Major, Kaiser, & McCoy, 2003a, Major, Quinton, & Schmader, 2003b). In sum, while there is evidence suggesting that individuals should be motivated to avoid claiming discrimination (Jetten et al., 2001, Swim & Hyers, 1999), there is also

7 2 evidence suggesting that individuals should be motivated to make attributions to discrimination (Crocker & Major, 1989, Kaiser & Miller, 2001). The costs and benefits of making attributions to discrimination are complex, and much remains to be learned in order to gain a full understanding of when individuals claim discrimination. The present research aims to add to this literature by conceptualizing these processes in terms of goal commitment. The goals that an individual holds in a situation will impact the costs and benefits relevant to that individual in the particular situation. For example, Crocker and Major (1989) assume in their theory of claiming discrimination that one s primary goal is to protect the self-esteem, particularly from failure. However, when fear of others rejection is a motivator, participants respond differently than when desiring to protect self-esteem from failure (Stangor, Swim, Van Allen, & Sechrist, 2002). In the current research, three different studies each compared goals that individuals may hold when in a potentially discriminatory situation self-presentation concerns, self-esteem maintenance, and fighting injustice. The goal of self-presentation involves a desire to create a positive public impression, a desire to be liked by others. If this goal is challenged, individuals will not claim discrimination in order to prevent creating a negative impression (Kaiser & Miller, 2001). The goal of self-esteem maintenance relates to one s need to maintain a positive sense of self. This is particularly relevant when one fails on a task and when this failure could be the result of discrimination. When this occurs, the likelihood that individuals will claim discrimination should increase in order to protect self-esteem from the negative consequences that failure evokes (Crocker & Major, 1989). Finally, the goal of fighting injustice relates to an individual s desire to work to improve the life situation of groups

8 3 that are of low status or that need help. This goal should lead to increased attributions to discrimination. While the activated goals that an individual brings to a situation influence when someone will make an attribution to discrimination, sometimes one can have many goals active at once. In these situations how committed one is to a particular goal will increase the likelihood that the goal is used in deciding whether or not to make an attribution to discrimination. The more committed one is to a goal, the more she is determined to pursue that goal, the more effort she invests in the goal, and the sooner she endeavors to complete the goal (Kruglanski, Shah, Fishbach, Friedman, Chun, & Sleeth-Keppler, 2002, Oettingen, Pak, & Schnetter, 2001). Therefore, the more committed an individual is to a goal that increases the likelihood of claiming discrimination, the more she will claim discrimination. Conversely, the more committed an individual is to a goal that decreases the likelihood of claiming discrimination, the less she will claim discrimination. In the current set of three studies, goal commitment was manipulated. In Study 1 regulatory focus was used to manipulate goal commitment, as it has been found to affect goal commitment (Shah, Friedman, & Kruglanski, 2002). In Studies 2 and 3, goal commitment was manipulated using an article prime that varies the importance of the goal it activates. To summarize the current three studies, in Study 1 the goal of self-esteem maintenance was compared to the goal of self-presentation using private vs. public reporting of attributions to discrimination. When making attributions privately after a failure, the goal of self-esteem maintenance should be more important than any other goal. When claiming discrimination publicly, self-presentation concerns should be more

9 4 important to participants than should self-esteem maintenance because the presence of others should increase participants concerns about creating a positive image and being liked by the others. Goal commitment was manipulated using regulatory focus. In Study 2, self-esteem maintenance goals were again compared to self-presentation goals, using an article that participants read. Goal commitment was manipulated using a questionnaire. In Study 3, injustice goals, self-esteem goals, and self-presentation goals were compared to one another, again manipulated using an article. Goal commitment again was manipulated using a questionnaire. In all three studies, I also measured selfesteem, anxiety, and depression to further explore the costs of claiming discrimination. Research On Attributions To Discrimination Whereas few studies have examined the relationship between claiming discrimination and goals, research on claiming discrimination as it relates to costs and benefits abounds. Crocker and her colleagues (1991) demonstrated a benefit that can come from claiming discrimination self-esteem maintenance when faced with failure. In their experiment, Black participants purportedly received negative feedback from a White evaluator, indicating that the evaluator would not like to work with them, be a classmate with them, or be their roommate. Participants were told that this evaluator either could, or could not see them through the blinds covering a one way mirror looking into the participants room. All participants then made attributions for their negative feedback and completed a measure of self-esteem. Black participants were significantly more likely to make attributions to discrimination when the evaluator could see them than when he could not see them. Also, when the evaluator could see participants, Black participants reported significantly

10 5 higher self-esteem than when the evaluator could not see them. Therefore, when participants could be seen by the evaluator, they claimed discrimination more, and they reported higher self-esteem relative to those who could not be seen. Crocker and her colleagues (1991) interpret these findings as a buffering effect. When participants are able to attribute their negative feedback to prejudice (when the evaluator could see that the participants were Black), they feel better about themselves as compared to those who have no reason to attribute the negative feedback to prejudice (when the evaluator could not see the participants) and therefore do not make prejudice attributions. When participants were able to make attributions to discrimination, they did not internalize the feelings aroused from the negative feedback they received. Instead, they blamed their negative results on the experimenter and felt more positive about their own abilities. Major, Quinton, and Schmader (2003b) conducted a study to test the influence of claiming discrimination on self-esteem in women. They found that women who were highly identified with their gender claimed discrimination more than did women who were low on gender identity. They also found that the more participants made attributions to discrimination relative to ability, the higher their self-esteem. This study again demonstrates that making attributions to discrimination buffers the self-esteem when faced with a potential failure. While these studies examined the self-esteem benefits of making attributions to discrimination, other studies have examined some of the costs of making such attributions. Kaiser and Miller (2001) found that when an individual claimed to be the victim of discrimination, participants reported lower levels of liking for the individual than when the individual did not claim discrimination. Swim and Hyers (1999) found

11 6 that participants were unwilling to confront discrimination due to fear of retaliation from the discriminator. Stangor, Swim, Van Allen, and Sechrist (2002) examined how these potential costs influence when individuals make attributions to discrimination. In their experiment, participants indicated the extent to which negative feedback they had received was due to discrimination. They made this attribution either privately, or they were told that they would have to read their attributions out loud. Participants who were to read their responses out loud in the presence of a member of the opposite social category (e.g. men, if the stigmatized group was women) claimed discrimination significantly less than did participants who made their ratings either privately or in the presence of a member of the same social category. These individuals seemed to be aware of the potential social costs of claiming discrimination. Sechrist, Swim, and Stangor (2004) replicated these results and examined the direct impact of self-presentation goals as compared to need for control goals. In this study, all participants thought that they would have to read their responses out loud, activating the self-presentation goal. Half of these participants completed a computer task designed to create the need to reassert personal control over one s outcomes. Sechrist and her colleagues found that when need for control was increased, participants were more likely to claim discrimination than when the self-presentation goal alone was activated. This study demonstrates that goal activation and commitment play a role in determining which costs and benefits are more important to an individual in any particular situation. When the need for control goal was increased, participants were less concerned about the costs associated with self-presentation (not being liked) and more concerned about the benefit of regaining a sense of control.

12 7 In the current research, I manipulated the activation of goals that are expected to lead to different discrimination attributions. In Study 1, I manipulated the goal of selfesteem maintenance in one condition and self-presentation concerns in another condition. Self-esteem maintenance should increase attributions to discrimination, whereas selfpresentation concerns should decrease attributions to discrimination. In Study 2, I again manipulated self-esteem maintenance and self-presentation goals, again in separate conditions, using different manipulations. In Study 3, I manipulated self-esteem maintenance in one condition, self-presentation in another condition, and the goal of fighting injustice in a third condition. In each of these studies I also measured selfesteem. Because self-esteem is both a potential cost and a potential benefit of claiming discrimination, how individuals goals influence both claiming discrimination and the resulting self-esteem will enable researchers to further understand when and how individuals benefit by claiming discrimination, and when and how claiming discrimination can be costly. Finally, not only must a goal be activated in order for it to influence claiming discrimination, but individuals must also be more committed to the goal than they are to another, competing goal in order for it to influence attributions to discrimination. Goal Commitment Goal commitment refers to the extent to which an individual desires, or is determined to pursue a goal (Kruglanski et al., 2002; Shah et al., 2002). Generally, goal commitment has been thought of as a multiplicative function of the value a person puts on a goal and the expectancy of attainment of the goal. Thus the more valuable a goal, and the more one expects to achieve the goal, the more committed one is to that goal.

13 8 Goal commitment can be increased by increasing either the perceived value of the goal or by increasing the expectation that one will achieve the goal. The more committed individuals are to a goal, the more they persist in working on the goal, the more they desire to return to goal striving when it is interrupted, and the more they inhibit alternative goals. One factor that has been shown to influence goal commitment is regulatory focus. Higgins (1997) theory of regulatory focus is based on the belief that individuals have different types of goals. We have ideal goals, goals involving our hopes, wishes, aspirations, and achievements; goals that are nurturance-related. We also have ought goals, goals involving our duties, obligations, and responsibilities; goals that are securityrelated. Ideal goals lead us to strive to approach matches to desired end-states and to a promotion focus. Ought goals lead us to strive to avoid mismatches to desired end-states and to a prevention focus. Promotion focused individuals are sensitive to the presence or absence of positive outcomes, while prevention focused are sensitive to the presence or absence of negative outcomes. We can also think of regulatory focus in terms of signal detection theory. In signal detection theory, a signal is either presented or not and an individual then responds either with a yes, there was a signal, or a no, there was not a signal. Four possible outcomes can result from a signal detection trial. One could have (1) a hit correctly detecting a present signal, (2) a false alarm saying yes when no signal was presented, (3) a correct rejection correctly saying no when there was no signal, or (4) a miss saying there was no signal when one was presented. Promotion focused individuals strive to ensure hits. This can lead to errors of commission, or false alarms. Prevention

14 9 focused individuals, in contrast, are more concerned about correct rejections. They are thus more likely to commit errors of omission or misses. Crowe and Higgins (1997) tested this theory using a recognition memory task. Participants were shown a series of nonsense syllables. Then after a filler task, they were shown a second list of nonsense syllables containing both the syllables they had seen previously and other syllables that they had not seen. When indicating whether or not they had seen the syllables before, promotion focused participants had a risky bias of saying that they had seen the syllable before to many more syllables than did prevention focused participants. Promotion focused participants desired to increase the likelihood that they find correct responses (hits) and did not worry about false alarms. Prevention focused participants were much more conservative in their responses, saying no more often in an attempt to ensure against including any syllables that they may not have seen, making correct rejections. Promotion focused participants were more risky while prevention focused participants were more conservative, avoiding risk as much as possible. While many studies manipulate regulatory focus, Freitas, Liberman, Salovey, and Higgins (2002) treated regulatory focus as an individual difference measure. They found in a number of studies that the more prevention focused an individual is, the sooner he desires to begin a task. In another study, this time manipulating regulatory focus, Freitas and his colleagues (2002) found that participants completed prevention focused tasks before they completed promotion focused tasks, again showing the urgency that prevention focus creates. Pennington and Roese (2003) replicated the results of Freitas

15 10 and his colleagues (2002), and they also found that prevention focused participants estimated that they would complete goals sooner than did promotion focused participants. Theories on goals have indicated that another quality of increased goal commitment is resumption of an interrupted task (Bargh, Gollwitzer, Lee-Chai, Barndollar, & Trotschel, 2001, Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982). A study by Liberman, Idson, Camacho, and Higgins (1999) tested the relationship between regulatory focus, and task persistence and resumption. In their study, promotion and prevention focused participants were interrupted while working on a task. They were then asked if they would prefer to start a new task or if they would prefer to resume the interrupted task. Prevention focused participants were significantly more likely than were promotion focused participants to desire to continue with the interrupted task. Promotion focused participants preferred to begin a new task. So, prevention focus increases commitment to an original task, leading these individuals to ignore a new task. Shah, Friedman, and Kruglanski (2002) also examined how regulatory focus influences goal commitment. In their study, participants listed two goals. They then rated the extent to which they felt that attaining each goal was a duty or responsibility and the extent to which they would ideally like to attain each goal. Participants then completed a lexical decision task to assess the activation of target goals as compared to the inhibition of alternative goals. They found that the more a goal was seen as a duty or obligation (a prevention focused goal), the more it inhibited alternative goals. The more a goal was seen as an ideal or aspiration, the less it inhibited alternative goals. They also found that anxiety significantly increased the inhibition of alternative goals, and that this effect was magnified when participants were prevention focused.

16 11 Taken together, this research demonstrates that prevention focus increases commitment to an activated goal, and that this is particularly likely with increased anxiety. Therefore, when discrimination is present, increasing prevention focus should lead to increased commitment to the activated goal, influencing when individuals report feeling discriminated against. If the activated goal decreases the likelihood of making attributions to discrimination, greater goal commitment, or prevention focused individuals should claim discrimination less than promotion focused individuals. Similarly, if the activated goal increases the likelihood of making attributions to discrimination, increased goal commitment, or prevention focused individuals should claim discrimination more than promotion focused individuals. In the current studies, anxiety was also measured to examine its relationship to goal commitment. Because increased goal commitment is related to increased anxiety, I considered the possibility that anxiety would mediate the relationship between goal commitment and claiming discrimination. The more committed individuals are to a goal, the greater their anxiety, and the greater their need to act in ways that are consistent with the goal to which they are committed. This should then lead to increased or decreased attributions to discrimination, depending on whether the activated goal should increase or decrease attributions to discrimination. If the activated goal leads to increased attributions to discrimination, increasing goal commitment should lead to increased anxiety, which should increase attributions to discrimination, but if the activated goal leads to decreased attributions to discrimination, increasing goal commitment should lead to increased anxiety, which should decrease attributions to discrimination. The Current Research

17 12 In the current studies, female participants experienced a potentially discriminatory situation. Only women were used because they may experience discrimination as a result of membership in this stigmatized group, and because they are a readily available stigmatized group. Goal commitment was manipulated using both regulatory focus (Study 1) and by directly increasing the importance of the activated goal (Studies 2 and 3). To produce a perception of potential discrimination, participants completed a task on which they were all told that they had performed poorly. They were then told that like many women, they displayed traditional thinking where inventive thinking was more appropriate. The dependent measures were the extent to which participants felt that their results were due to discrimination and a measure of self-esteem. Anxiety and depression were measured to assess their functions as both a mediator and as a dependent measure. Participants completed a measure of anxiety because prior research has demonstrated that anxiety is related to goal commitment. Shah and his colleagues (2002) showed that anxiety is related to increased goal commitment, particularly for prevention focused participants. Further, other studies have shown that anxiety is associated with regulatory focus, and in particular with prevention focus (Higgins, 1997, Higgins, Shah, & Friedman, 1997). Because prevention focus is associated with avoiding negative outcomes, the more anxious one feels, the more concerned she should be with the avoiding negative outcomes. This should also mean that increased anxiety increases a concern for the potential costs associated with an unfulfilled goal, which increases an individual s desire to act in ways that do not conflict with her activated goal. Acting in ways that conflict with their goals could lead to negative outcomes, which these individuals are striving to avoid. Therefore, anxiety was measured to examine its

18 13 relationship to goal commitment and claiming discrimination. Increased anxiety should be associated with an increase in goal commitment, and thus with a desire to make attributions to discrimination in ways that will not conflict with their activated goal. Further, increased anxiety could be a cost associated with claiming discrimination, independent of self-esteem. Anxiety was also included to examine this possibility. Overall, I believed that anxiety would mediate the relationship between goal commitment and attributions to discrimination. Depression was measured because it also has been associated with regulatory focus (Higgins, 1997, Higgins, Shah, & Friedman, 1997), and particularly with promotion focus. Thus, promotion focused individuals, or low commitment participants, could report more depression as a result of their negative outcomes than the higher commitment participants. Likewise, depression could be a cost associated with claiming or not claiming discrimination, independent of self-esteem. Thus it was also measured to examine these possibilities. Participants completed a measure of self-esteem to further examine the costs and benefits associated with making or minimizing attributions to discrimination, particularly as it relates to activated goals. Crocker and her colleagues (1991, 1993, Major et al., 2003a, Major et al., 2003b) have shown that making attributions to discrimination can protect the self-esteem. I intend to replicate this result in conditions where self-esteem maintenance is the activated goal. It is possible that the self-esteem is only protected when individuals are most committed to the self-esteem maintenance goal, and not when they are more committed to another goal. This could be the case regardless of whether the alternative goal leads to discrimination attributions or not. However, it is also

19 14 possible that by acting in accordance with the goal to which an individual is most committed, self-esteem will be protected regardless of discrimination attributions. Overall, I predict that only when self-esteem maintenance is the activated goal will selfesteem increase as attributions to discrimination increase. When an individual is more committed to another goal, attributions to discrimination will not relate to self-esteem. Discrimination should create some kind of negative outcome for the target, whether it be not receiving a job or promotion, failing on a task, or being degraded. Any of these things could lead to a decrease in self-esteem. Individuals may protect the selfesteem by claiming discrimination if it is their goal to protect the self-esteem. However, if individuals are more committed to another goal, they will act to fulfill that goal, concerning themselves with the costs and benefits associated with that goal at the expense of improving self-esteem. Individuals will not address the negative outcome resulting from discrimination, but choose to ignore it to act in accordance with the goal to which they are more committed. Thus after the goal is satisfied, individuals must still deal with the negative outcome resulting from the discrimination. Because the negative outcome has not been addressed, individuals self-esteem will not be protected by acting in accordance with a goal other than self-esteem maintenance. Self-esteem was measured in the current experiments to show this. In Study 1, regulatory focus was manipulated and then participants completed the task on which they received negative feedback. Before receiving the feedback, half the participants were told that they would read their responses to their questionnaires out loud to the experimenter (self-presentation condition). In order to increase the salience of the public nature of their responses, participants first read their responses to a

20 15 demographic questionnaire aloud to the experimenter. Believing that they have to read their responses out loud should activate self-presentation goals in these participants. The other half of the participants were told that their responses were private, that they will seal their responses in an envelope (self-esteem maintenance condition). These participants did this with a demographic sheet, again to increase the salience of the private nature of their responses. Then participants received their feedback, which was poor for all participants. The negative feedback was expected to activate a self-esteem maintenance goal only in participants whose responses were private. Because participants in the self-presentation condition have the goal of self-presentation activated, they should inhibit alternative goals and focus on the currently activated goal (Shah et al., 2002). After receiving their results, participants indicated the extent to which their results were due to discrimination (the dependent measure). Finally participants completed measures of self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. For these last three measures, all participants were told that their responses would be private. I predicted a main effect of the activated goal. Participants in the self-esteem maintenance (private) condition should claim discrimination more than participants in the self-presentation condition (public). I also predicted an interaction between the activated goal and goal commitment (regulatory focus), such that high commitment (prevention focused) participants will display greater commitment to the activated goal, evidenced through attributions to discrimination. In the self-esteem maintenance (private) condition, high commitment (prevention focused) participants should make more attributions to discrimination than should low commitment (promotion focused) participants. In the self-presentation condition (public), high commitment (prevention

21 16 focused) participants should make fewer attributions to discrimination than should low commitment (promotion focused) participants. For self-esteem, I predicted an interaction between the activated goal and goal commitment. In the self-esteem maintenance condition (private), high commitment (prevention focused) participants should report higher levels of self-esteem, as they make more attributions to discrimination, protecting their self-esteem from the negative consequences of failure. In the self-presentation condition (public), participants should display equal levels of self-esteem, as attributions to discrimination are not made to protect self-esteem from failure. For anxiety I predicted a main effect of goal commitment (regulatory focus). The high commitment (prevention focused) participants should report more anxiety than low commitment (promotion focused) participants, regardless of the activated goal. I also predicted an interaction between the activated goal and anxiety on claiming discrimination. In the self-esteem maintenance (private) condition, the more anxious participants feel, the more they should claim discrimination. In the self-presentation (public) condition, the more anxious participants feel, the less they should claim discrimination. Study 2 again compared the goals of self-esteem maintenance and selfpresentation. Participants again completed the task on which they all did poorly. While their responses were being graded, participants read an article describing the importance of either having high self-esteem or describing the importance of being well liked by others in order to prime the respective goals. Participants in the high commitment condition then completed a questionnaire about the content of the article, including an item that asks the participants to list three ways they can work to achieve the described goal. Those in the low commitment condition completed a questionnaire about the

22 17 grammar and sentence structure of the article. After reading the articles and completing their accompanying questionnaires, participants again completed the attributions questionnaire, and they handed their questionnaire to the experimenter after completing it. This procedure should make participants feel less anonymous than sealing their responses in an envelope, but it should not increase self-presentation concerns to the same degree as does reading responses aloud. Finally, all participants completed measures of self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. I again predicted a main effect of goal activation, such that those in the selfesteem maintenance condition should claim discrimination more than those in the selfpresentation condition. I also predicted an interaction between the activated goal and goal commitment. I believed that in the self-esteem maintenance condition, highly committed participants would again make more attributions to discrimination than would participants in the low commitment condition. They would do this in order to protect their self-esteem from the negative consequences of doing poorly on the experimental task. In the self-presentation condition, participants in the high commitment condition should again make fewer attributions to discrimination than should participants in the low commitment condition in order to present a more positive public image. For self-esteem, I predicted an interaction between the activated goal and goal commitment. In the self-esteem maintenance condition, participants in the high commitment condition should report higher levels of self-esteem than should participants low in commitment, just as in Study 1. In the self-presentation condition, participants in the high and low commitment conditions should again report equal levels of self-esteem. Finally, I predicted that anxiety would mediate the relationship between goal

23 18 commitment and attributions to discrimination. In the self-esteem maintenance condition, the more committed participants are to maintaining their self-esteem, the more anxious they should feel. This should lead to greater attributions to discrimination. In the self-presentation condition, the more committed participants are to the selfpresentation goal, the more anxious they should feel, and the less they should claim discrimination. In Study 3 I introduced a new goal that is expected to influence discrimination attributions. In Study 3, I compared the goals of self-esteem maintenance, selfpresentation, and fighting injustice. System justification or believing that the system is legitimate is a goal that has been examined in conjunction with claiming discrimination (Major et al., 2002, Jost & Kay, 2005). The more an individual sees the system as just or legitimate, the less likely he is to claim discrimination. The goal of fighting injustice was designed to be the opposite of the goal of justifying the system. It induced participants to see the system unjust and in need of change. In the experiment, participants again completed a task on which they all failed. Before receiving feedback, participants read an article to prime the goal of maintaining a positive self-esteem, the goal of being well liked by others, or the goal of fighting to correct injustice. Participants also completed a questionnaire accompanying the article, again to manipulate goal commitment. Participants then received their feedback and completed the attributions questionnaire and measures of self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. For Study 3, I predicted an interaction between the activated goal and goal commitment. In the self-esteem maintenance condition, the high commitment participants should claim discrimination more than should low commitment participants.

24 19 In the injustice condition, the effect should be the same, with high commitment participants again claiming discrimination more than low commitment participants. In the self-presentation condition, high commitment participants were expected to claim discrimination less than low commitment participants. Anxiety should again mediate the relationship between goal commitment and attributions to discrimination. In the selfesteem maintenance and fighting injustice conditions, the more committed participants are to their goal, the more anxious they should feel. This should lead to greater attributions to discrimination. In the self-presentation condition, the more committed participants are to the self-presentation goal, the more anxious they should feel, and the less they should claim discrimination. In this study, self-esteem should relate to discrimination attributions only in the self-esteem maintenance condition, as participants in the other conditions make attributions to discrimination to fulfill other goals that are unrelated to self-esteem maintenance. STUDY 1 Method Participants Participants were 92 undergraduate women at the University of Maryland. They participated in exchange for extra credit in lower level psychology courses. Twenty-two participants were dropped due to suspicion, leaving a total of 70 subjects. Procedure Participants arrived at the lab in pairs and were greeted by a male experimenter. The experimenter was male in order to decrease the possibility that participants would perceive the experimenter as supportive or empathetic. Participants were told that the

25 20 study was about how an individual s goals influence their intellectual inventiveness. The experimenter explained that the research was being conducted in conjunction with a statistical analysis firm in Laurel, MD. He told participants that previous research has found a relationship between intellectual inventiveness and future success, and that now we were interested in examining how goals interact with intellectual inventiveness to predict future success. The experimenter then told participants that first they would describe their goals; then they would complete a cognitive task. He told them that they would receive feedback on how well they did on the cognitive task and that they would complete a questionnaire evaluating their feedback and a questionnaire on their mood and current attitudes. Participants were then told that their responses to the word completion task would be graded by Matthew Davis, an evaluator from the statistical analysis firm who is an expert on the relationship between intellectual inventiveness and future success, and they were told that he is generally very accurate at evaluating individuals levels of intellectual inventiveness. Participants were given consent forms to sign before beginning the experiment. They then began by writing about their goals in order to manipulate regulatory focus. Half the participants wrote about their hopes and aspirations as a manipulation of promotion focus (see Appendix A). The other half wrote about their duties and obligations as a manipulation of prevention focus (see Appendix A). After this, the experimenter described the word completion task (see Appendix A) to participants. The word completion task contained eight letter strings each containing ten letters. Participants were given five minutes to find as many words as possible from the letter strings. Participants were told that the more words they found, and the longer the words,

26 21 the better they would do. The experimenter handed out the word completion task and then left the room for exactly five minutes. When the experimenter returned, he asked participants to write their initials and their gender at the top of the page in order to increase participants awareness of their gender. Then he collected participants tasks and took them to the evaluator. He told participants that it would take the evaluator a few minutes to grade the tasks and that while he is grading them, he would like the participants to complete some demographic information. The experimenter then left the room, ostensibly to take the word completion tasks to the evaluator, and he returned one minute later with demographic information sheets (see Appendix B). He then explained to the participants in the self-esteem maintenance (private) condition that they should complete the form, seal it in an envelope that he would give them, and then put it in a pile of other envelopes which were sitting on a table where participants could see it. To participants in the self-presentation (public) condition, the experimenter explained that in order to save time with data entry, they would read their responses out loud to him while he wrote them down on a legal pad. Participants then completed the demographic information sheets. Participants in the self-esteem maintenance (private) condition sealed their sheets in an envelope and put it in the pile of other envelopes, and participants in the self-presentation (public) condition read their responses out loud to the experimenter while he wrote them on a legal pad. The experimenter alternated between participants in the self-presentation (public) condition as they read responses out loud. Participants in this condition read their responses out loud in order to increase the realism of and concern for having to read responses out loud.

27 22 Once participants had finished with the demographic sheets, the experimenter left the room and returned with their feedback on the word completion task. Feedback was written on separate evaluation forms (see Appendix C). The experimenter explained that he would give all participants a minute to look over their scores before he gave them the feedback evaluation questionnaire. The experimenter handed back the grades. All participants received a score of a D with the comment like many women, you exhibit traditional thinking where inventive thinking is more appropriate. The experimenter then left the room for one minute, and returned with the feedback evaluation questionnaire. Participants were told that, as they had done with the demographic information sheet, they would either seal their responses in an envelope or they would read their responses out loud to the experimenter. The feedback evaluation questionnaire (see Appendix D) asked participants to rate on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (completely) the extent to which they felt that their responses were due to their own ability and effort, bias, the quality of their answers, and discrimination. Bias and discrimination were averaged as the measure of attributions to discrimination (α =.80). After participants completed the feedback evaluation questionnaire, they completed measures of their mood and attitudes (see Appendix E for measures). They were all told that the mood and attitude measures would be completely anonymous, and that no one would know their responses to the questionnaire. Mood was measured using a six-item measure rated on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 9 (completely). Participants rated the extent to which they felt each of the following at that moment nervous, happy, tense, discouraged, relaxed, anxious, calm, and depressed. Nervous, relaxed (reverse scored), tense, and anxious were used as a measure of anxiety (α =.85).

28 23 Discouraged, happy (reverse scored), and depressed were used as a measure of depression (α =.65). The attitude measures were 14 items from the Heatherton and Polivy (1991) state self-esteem scale and the Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem scale (α =.88). Heatherton and Polivy (1991) included the social (α =.91) and performance (α =.79) subscales. Items were rated on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (completely). The Rosenberg scale included 10 items on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Finally, participants were asked what they thought the experiment was about, and then they were checked for suspicion, debriefed, and dismissed. Results Attributions to Discrimination To assess the effects of my manipulations on attributions to discrimination, I conducted a 2 (activated goal: self-esteem maintenance (private) vs. self-presentation (public)) by 2 (goal commitment: high (prevention) vs. low commitment (promotion focus)). I found a significant interaction between activated goal and goal commitment on attributions to discrimination, F(1, 66) = 4.37, p<.05. The effect size effect size was (η 2 p ) =.06. As predicted, in the self-presentation (public) condition, high commitment (prevention focused) participants claimed discrimination significantly less than did participants in the low commitment (promotion focused) condition (see Table 1 for 2 = means), F(1, 66) = 4.80, p<.05, η p.14. In the self-esteem maintenance (private) condition, although in the predicted direction, high (prevention) and low commitment (promotion focused) participants (see Table 1 for means) did not differ significantly, F(1, 66) =.52, ns. Finally, as would be expected, in the high commitment (prevention focused) condition, I found a significant difference between the self-esteem maintenance

29 24 2 (private) and self-presentation (public) conditions, F(1, 66) = 4.60, p<.05, η p =.12, but I found no difference between the self-esteem maintenance (private) and the selfpresentation (public) conditions in the low commitment (promotion focused) condition, F(1, 66) =.60, ns. Self-Esteem and Mood Measures Next, I conducted 2 (activated goal: self-esteem maintenance (private) vs. selfpresentation (public)) by 2 (goal commitment: high (prevention) vs. low (promotion focused) commitment) ANOVAs to test the influence of activated goal and goal commitment on self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. I found no effects on the social state self-esteem (see Table 2 for means) or on the performance state self-esteem subscales (see Table 2). Neither did I find any effects on the Rosenberg (1965) selfesteem scale (see Table 2). I also did not find any effects on anxiety (see Table 3 for means). However, I found a marginal main effect of goal commitment on depression, F(1, 66) = 2.80, p=.10, η 2 p =.04, such that those in the low commitment (promotion focused) condition reported greater depression than did those in the high commitment (prevention focused) condition (see Table 3 for means). Mediator Checks In order to explore the possibility of mediators, I examined the relationships among attributions to discrimination, self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. I conducted a series of correlations that are presented in Table 4. Attributions to discrimination were significantly negatively related to the state self-esteem performance subscale. Attributions to discrimination were also significantly negatively related to Rosenberg self-esteem. Thus, the more participants claimed discrimination, the lower their self-

30 25 esteem. I also found that overall, the lower participants self-esteem, the more anxious and the more depressed participants felt. Next, in order to assess whether any of the correlations among the dependent variables differed in separate conditions, I examined the correlations in the goal activation conditions and in the goal commitment conditions separately. I correlated the variables in the self-esteem maintenance (private) condition, and then I conducted the correlations in the self-presentation (public) condition. The correlations in the goal activation conditions were not different from one another, nor were they different from the overall correlations. I had predicted that attributions to discrimination and selfesteem would only be related in the self-esteem maintenance condition, but I did not find this relationship. However, within goal commitment conditions, I found significant correlations in the high commitment (prevention focused) condition that were not significant in the low commitment (promotion focused) condition. In the low commitment (promotion focused) condition, attributions to discrimination did not correlate with any measures of self-esteem, anxiety, or depression; however the correlations among the measures of self-esteem, anxiety, and depression were all significantly correlated, as in the overall correlations. In the high commitment (prevention focused) condition, attributions to discrimination were significantly correlated with social state self-esteem, r(33) = -.37, p<.05, performance state selfesteem, r(33) = -.49, p<.05, Rosenberg self-esteem, r(33) = -.48, p<.05, anxiety, r(33) =.43, p<.05, and depression, r(33) =.44, p<.05. The correlations among the self-esteem measures, anxiety, and depression were again all significantly correlated as in the promotion focused condition, and as in the overall correlations.

31 26 To assess whether any correlations in the promotion focused condition were different from the prevention focused condition, I conducted moderated multiple regressions, including the interaction term between the condition (self-esteem maintenance vs. self-presentation) and attributions to discrimination. For the relationship between social state self-esteem and attributions to discrimination, the slope in the high commitment (prevention focused) condition did not differ significantly from the slope in the low commitment (promotion focused) condition. Likewise, for the relationship between performance state self-esteem and attributions to discrimination the slope in the high commitment (prevention focused) condition was not significantly different from the same slope in the low commitment (promotion focused) condition. However, the slope predicting Rosenberg scores from attributions to discrimination in the high commitment (prevention focused) condition was marginally different from the slope in the low commitment (promotion focused) condition, β = -.77, t (68) = -1.88, p<.07. The slopes predicting anxiety from attributions to discrimination differed significantly by condition, β =.95, t (68) = 2.29, p<.05. Finally, the slopes predicting depression from attributions to discrimination differed significantly by condition, β =.89, t (68) = 2.15, p<.05. These results show that for those in the high commitment (prevention focused) condition, attributions to discrimination predicted increased anxiety and depression, and decreased self-esteem as measured by the Rosenberg self-esteem scale, but that attributions to discrimination did not predict these things in the promotion focused condition. Discussion